The Greek Parliament ratified in the early hours of Thursday the 2011 state budget in a roll call vote which produced 156 votes in favour and 142 against. Out of the 300 Parliament deputies, 298 participated in the roll call vote just after midnight in a nationally televised session held to consider the draft 2011 state budget.

Addressing the House prior to the vote, Prime Minister George Papandreou stressed that "I declare myself more optimistic than ever for Hellenism and Greece. In 2012 we shall enter a growth orbit and in 2013, riddance from the memorandum. The painful measures are now behind us."

Papandfreou added that "as we have denied the local and international Cassandras of disaster, in the same way we shall deny them until they leave us alone, until they realise that this government, these people, do not bow and do not succumb."

Papandreou referred to "myths" which, as he said weaken the effort for the recovery of the country's prestige and sink Greek society in misery and fatalism. He added that one myth wants the crisis to be an international one, a capitalist one which is irrelevant with Greek reality.

"Both are valid," the prime minister said, "the crisis found Greece in a state of collapse, because we did not do what we should have done for years."

He further said that another myth considers bankruptcy to be inevitable. "There is no discussion which is more corrosive, more dangerous and unfair than that which some are maintaining: We found,ourselves on the verge of bankruptcy, we passed through hell in 2010, but we stood up. We are facing the issue of the debt with prudence, systematically, in an organised way and with careful negotiations, such as for the extension of the repayment."

Papandreou also referred to Greek responsibilities saying: "Must we blame the IMF? Did we not have responsibility for the corruption of the National Health System (ESY). For the unbelievable bureaucracy, the clientele relations, the lack of regional development, the fact that we created an agriculture depending on subsidies without being competitive, that our universities are unacceptably low in the international rating, that our islands lack drainage, refuse dumps, places of recreation."

The prime minster underlined that the government's top priority in 2011 is "a state at the servive of the citizen" with electronic Citizen Serving Centres, the citizen's card, a unified salary scale, a card for the registration of receipts.

Lastly, Papandreou pointed out that "we shall do everything so that this crisis will not deal a blow at the poorest. We shall exhaust all margins in cooperation with the local administration bodies (OTA), the society of citizens, even with the Church, in this direction."